Having grown up in a city, fireworks were not a part of my childhood celebrations. I saw them regularly, but always from afar. Somewhere in New York Harbor or the East River the rockets go up, and over the city they explode. I can see them, but I can’t feel them.

One year during elementary school my family went down to visit my uncle in North Carolina for the Fourth of July. I remember kids holding sparklers and maybe someone lit real fireworks, but it wasn’t a big show, and most of it is gone from my memory. So I jumped at the opportunity to light fireworks myself and see them go off only feet away from me, for the first time I could remember.

July 28th is the Peruvian Independence Day, el día patria, and I spent the day with a dozen other Americans. But we wanted to get into the spirit of the day, so we decided to buy fireworks, or efectivos explosivos, to give ourselves and some residents of Ayacucho a show for Independence Day.

[Unfortunately in uploading the photos to the website they’ve lost some of their color. The original photos are more colorful than they appear here, and the full color can be seen by clicking on the photos.]

We bought a castillo–a castle– with five stories. We didn’t know what to expect, but the stack of bamboo and the diagram gave hints.

 

After some searching, a member of our party found a lot where we could light the fireworks. It turned out to be a hardtop, and when we got there we found a group of people playing music and dancing. Nothing unusual.

 

We watched the men set up the castillo.

 

Then we watched the show.

 

As you can see, it was a beautiful evening.